Elian Crisis Plays Into Castro's Hands

December 11, 1999|By WILLIAM E. GIBSON Washington Bureau Chief

The ongoing standoff between the United States and Cuba, sparked by the rescue of a 6-year-old boy, seems eerily similar to events leading up to the Mariel boatlift of 1980, the Cuban rafter crisis of 1994 and the shootdown of two civilian aircraft three years ago.

Even those who take an alarmist view of the international incident swirling around little EliM-an Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who was brought to South Florida two weeks ago, are not predicting that it will turn into a full-blown crisis.

But some Cuba watchers fear that events could spin out of control in the tense atmosphere created by mass protests and instability in Cuba, as well as political pressures in this country. At the least, it could give Cuban President Fidel Castro another opportunity to force the United States to make some concessions under the threat of another mass migration to Florida.

"The Cubans have clearly escalated this incident in terms of denunciations and protest. They have intentionally created a crisis atmosphere," said William LeoGrande, professor of political science and a Cuba expert at American University in Washington. "It seems to me the worst-case scenario is that it escalates into an immigration crisis."

Castro has a long history of seizing on confrontations with the United States to get his way, going back to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. That episode ended with the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba but also with President John F. Kennedy pledging that the United States would never again launch an invasion of Cuba.

"You have a leader in Cuba who has always gotten what he wants by being audacious," said Richard Nuccio, formerly a U.S. diplomat and President Clinton's adviser on Cuba. "Presumably he has some object in mind in terms of maintaining domestic stability. He will take us to the wall to try to get what he wants."

The current diplomatic tug of war began with a basic humanitarian act: EliM-an's rescue after the vessel carrying him to Florida capsized. The standoff came after U.S. officials decided to keep the boy with relatives in Miami until a court determines custody, rather than sending him back to his father in Cuba.

Some U.S. officials said privately this week that it might have been unwise to bring EliM-an into this country, a decision that inevitably sparked angry reactions, including mass protests outside the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Now that EliM-an is ensconced in South Florida, the Cuban exile community and anti-Castro hard-liners in Congress are demanding that he remain.

The custody dispute lit the powder keg of U.S.-Cuba relations just when business interests, the Catholic church and farm exporters in this country were hoping to ease the U.S. embargo policy. By stirring protests, Castro engaged in a high-risk strategy that jeopardized his anti-embargo cause, apparently to serve his higher priority of maintaining internal security.

"This case is masking the central issue," said Nuccio, Clinton's former Cuba adviser. "Things are bad in Cuba, and they are not getting better. The economy has stabilized at a very low level. People are discouraged about things getting any better as long as Castro is alive. They are voting with their feet, or their paddles."

These pressures, reflected by a rash of people-smuggling out of Cuba, apparently prompted Castro to seize an opportunity to tweak the United States in the world's eyes, rally his own people and press U.S. officials to enforce laws against smugglers.

A master manipulator, Castro has used standoffs to keep everyone off balance and exert internal control.

The Mariel boatlift of 1980, in which 125,000 Cubans fled to Florida, allowed Castro to be rid of large numbers of dissidents while pummeling the United States with a wave of immigrants. He allowed ordinary criminals to join the boatlift, inflicting a wave of crime on South Florida. "Flushing the toilets," Castro called it.

Another mass migration came in 1994, when thousands of rafters headed for Florida. From this crisis, Castro extracted an immigration accord with the United States to control the flow of people.

Then in 1996, during a U.S. presidential election, Cuban military jets shot down two Brothers to the Rescue planes flown by Cuban-Americans near the Cuban coastline. Clinton responded by signing the Helms-Burton bill tightening the U.S. embargo.

Castro then used the Helms-Burton law as an excuse for dire economic conditions in Cuba. And he effectively prompted U.S. authorities to enforce laws to prevent Cuban-American protesters from entering Cuban waters and airspace.

Cuba experts say Castro apparently intends to use the current standoff to prompt the United States to agree to enforce smuggling laws. This item is expected to top Cuba's priority list when officials from both countries meet in Havana on Monday as part of regularly scheduled talks on implementing the immigration accord.

"All this smuggling makes Cuba look bad. It constantly sends a message that there's something about this regime that drives people to desperate measures to get away," Nuccio said. "Fidel now wants the Cuban people to know they have no way out. He wants them to know they have to live with him.

"If they start to get the idea there's an alternative, there's no telling what may happen."

William E. Gibson can be reached at wgibson@sun-sentinel.com or 202-824-8256 in Washington.